System and method for providing tag-based relevance recommendations of bookmarks in a bookmark and tag database

ABSTRACT

A method comprises identifying a first user having stored in a database a set of first bookmarks associated with a topic of interest; determining a level of relatedness of a second user to the first user by comparing a first number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks; determining a level of value of the second user to the first user by comparing a second number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks; and presenting at least a portion of the related nonoverlapping bookmarks to the first user.

COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates generally to web browsing, and more particularly provides a system and method for providing tag-based relevance recommendations of bookmarks in a bookmark and tag database.

BACKGROUND

A number of techniques for saving references to content items are known to those of skill in the art. One example is a bookmark (favorite) available by most popular web browsers. A user utilizes a web browser to view content items available over a network, e.g., the Internet. When the user navigates to a content item of possible future interest, the user saves a bookmark to the content item in the web browser. For example, where a given content item is identified by an address, e.g., a URL, the web browser locally saves a bookmark to the content item by maintaining the URL of the content item and a label to identify the content item in a local store. When the user wishes to subsequently view the content item, the user may select the locally saved bookmark, causing the web browser to navigate to the address associated with the bookmark to access the content item.

Stored bookmarks are available locally to the user that originally saved the bookmark. What are needed are mechanisms for storing bookmarks for local and/or public use and mechanisms for enabling easy retrieval of those stored bookmarks.

SUMMARY

In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a method comprises identifying a first user having stored in a database a set of first bookmarks associated with a topic of interest; determining a level of relatedness of a second user to the first user by comparing a first number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks; determining a level of value of the second user to the first user by comparing a second number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks; and presenting at least a portion of the related nonoverlapping bookmarks to the first user.

The method may further comprise determining whether the first user has more than a threshold number of first bookmarks in the set of first bookmarks associated with the topic of interest. The database may be a publicly available database. The first bookmarks may be associated with at least one first tag that indicates the topic of interest. The nonoverlapping bookmarks may be associated with at least one second tag, and the method may determine whether the nonoverlapping bookmarks are related to the topic of interest by comparing the at least one first tag to the at least one second tag. The method may further comprise determining whether the first number is greater than an overlapping threshold, and/or determining whether the second number is greater than a nonoverlapping threshold. The method may further comprise generating an overlap score of the second user to the first user based on the level of relatedness and on the level of value; determining a level of relatedness of a third user to the first user by comparing a third number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the third user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks; determining a level of value of the third user to the first user by comparing a fourth number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the third user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks; generating an overlap score of the third user to the first user based on the level of relatedness and on the level of value; and comparing the overlap score of the second user to the overlap score of the third user to determine whether the second user or the third user should be prioritized. The method may further comprise presenting the first user a first link to the bookmarks of the second user and second link to the bookmarks of the third user.

In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a system comprises a recommendation manager for identifying a first user having stored in a database a set of first bookmarks corresponding to a topic of interest; and an overlap determination module for determining a level of relatedness of a second user to the first user by comparing a first number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks, and for determining a level of value of the second user to the first user by comparing a second number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks.

The recommendation manager may determine whether the first user has more than a threshold number of first bookmarks in the set of first bookmarks associated with the topic of interest. The database may be a publicly available database. The first bookmarks may be associated with at least one first tag that indicates the topic of interest. The nonoverlapping bookmarks may be associated with at least one second tag, and the overlap determination module may determine whether the nonoverlapping bookmarks are related to the topic of interest by comparing the at least one first tag to the at least one second tag. The system may further comprise a related user finder for determining whether the first number is greater than an overlapping threshold and/or for determining whether the second number is greater than a nonoverlapping threshold. The system may further comprise an overlap score generator for generating an overlap score of the second user to the first user based on the level of relatedness and on the level of value. The overlap determination module may determine a level of relatedness of a third user to the first user by comparing a third number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the third user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks. The overlap determination module may determine a level of value of the third user to the first user by comparing a fourth number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the third user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks. The overlap score generator may generate an overlap score of the third user to the first user based on the level of relatedness and on the level of value. The system may further comprise a recommendation manager for comparing the overlap score of the second user to the overlap score of the third user to determine whether the second user or the third user should be prioritized. The recommendation manager may enable presenting the first user a first link to the bookmarks of the second user and second link to the bookmarks of the third user. The recommendation manager may enable presenting at least a portion of the related nonoverlapping bookmarks to the first user.

In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, a system comprises means for identifying a first user having stored in a database a set of first bookmarks associated with a topic of interest; means for determining a level of relatedness of a second user to the first user by comparing a first number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks; means for determining a level of value of the second user to the first user by comparing a second number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks; and means for presenting at least a portion of the related nonoverlapping bookmarks to the first user.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a network system implementing bookmark packaging and searching, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating details of the bookmark packaging engine of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating the data structure of a bookmark package, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4A is a block diagram illustrating details of the bookmark search engine of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4B is a block diagram illustrating details of the bookmark recommendation engine of FIG. 4A.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example bookmark packaging form for obtaining a bookmark and meta-information on a bookmark, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example user interface for displaying the results of a search of a bookmark package database, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating details of an example computer system.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a method of packaging and indexing a bookmark, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating a method of searching a bookmark package database, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a method of recommending related bookmarks, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is an example set of user tags and associated URLs for four example users.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the invention, and is provided in the context of a particular application and its requirements. Various modifications to the embodiments are possible to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to these and other embodiments and applications without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles, features and teachings disclosed herein.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a network system 100 implementing bookmark packaging, storing, searching and recommending, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Network system 100 includes client devices 105 coupled via a network 110, e.g., the Internet, to content servers 115. A bookmark packaging engine 120 is coupled to the network 110 to enable users of the client devices 105 to package and store bookmarks to content items deemed interesting to the user in a bookmark package database 125, which is coupled to the bookmark packaging engine 120. A bookmark search engine 130 is also coupled to the network 110 to enable users of the client devices 105 to search the bookmark package database 125, which is also coupled to the bookmark search engine 130, and/or to obtain tag-based bookmark recommendations. The bookmark packaging engine 120, the bookmark package database 125, and the bookmark search engine 130 may be operated by a single entity or different entities, on a single server or on multiple servers, etc.

A client device 105 communicates with content servers 115 to view content items. Example content items include web pages, text documents, images, audio files, video files, multimedia files, or any other form of digital content accessible over a network. A client device 105 may be a laptop computer, desktop computer, PDA, mobile phone, etc. A client device 105 may run software applications including a web browser that allows for communication with content servers 115 and presentation of the content items provided by the content servers 115 to the user of the client device 105. In one embodiment, the browser 135 is modified to include bookmark-posting functionality. Bookmark-posting functionality may be provided to the browser 135 via a post bookmark plugin 140 (as shown) or via other techniques known to those skilled in the art. The post bookmark plugin 140 may be provided to enable the user to add bookmarks and meta-information to the bookmark database 125 while browsing a web page and without first navigating to a website managed by the bookmark packaging engine 120. In another embodiment, the browser 135 does not include bookmark-posting functionality. In such case, the user may navigate to the website managed by the bookmark packaging engine 120 to enter the bookmark and meta-information.

The bookmark packaging engine 120 includes hardware, software and/or firmware to enable packaging of bookmarks and forwarding of bookmark packages to the bookmark package database 125. The bookmark packaging engine 120 provides an interface (application and/or user) to receive a bookmark request, to obtain meta-information (e.g., tags) on the bookmark, to automatically generate other meta-information on the bookmark, to combine the bookmark and meta-information to generate a “bookmark package”, and to forward the bookmark package to the bookmark package database 125 for indexing and storage. An example bookmark package 300 is shown in and described with reference to FIG. 3. An example bookmark packaging form 500 for obtaining a bookmark and meta-information, including tags, on a bookmark is shown in and described with reference to FIG. 5.

It will be appreciated that the bookmark packaging engine 120 may refuse to package and/or forward content items or URLs known to be bad (e.g., malicious, system damaging, irrelevant to the system's scope of operation, hateful, etc.), to package and/or forward any content items from users known to be bad (e.g., known to post bad content items, known to have a record of malicious behavior, etc.), to package and/or forward any content items without any meta-information (or specific meta-information, e.g., tags) added to it, and/or the like.

The bookmark package database 125 stores the bookmark packages 300 possibly in relational database or other database format. In one embodiment, the bookmark package database 125 generates index information to enable fast and easy retrieval of bookmark packages 300 in response to user search requests. In one embodiment, the bookmark package database 125 generates a “tag space” for each bookmark package 300. A tag space for a given content items includes all tags associated with that given content item. That is, the tag space for a given content item includes all tags associated with all bookmarks in the bookmark package database 125 that are associated with the given content item. For example, one or more registered users may create multiple bookmark packages 300 for a given content item. Although the bookmarks are associated with the same content item, each may include different tag information. The tag space for the given content item includes the collection of all tags associated with all bookmark packages 300 in the set. Accordingly, the tag space for each bookmark package 300 associated with the same content will have the same tag space. Conversely, in one embodiment, the bookmark package database 125 may include a “bookmark space” for a given tag. That is, a bookmark space includes the set of bookmarks associated with a given tag. The bookmark package database 125 may generate other index information, e.g., description space, user notes space, groupings, categorizations, etc., to enable fast searching and more helpful search results.

It will be appreciated that the bookmark package database 125 may refuse to index and/or store content items or URLs known to be bad (e.g., malicious, system damaging, irrelevant to the system's scope of operation, hateful, etc.), to index and/or store any content items from users known to be bad (e.g., known to post bad content items, known to have a record of malicious behavior, etc.), to index and/or store any content items without any meta-information (or specific meta-information, e.g., tags) added to it, and/or the like.

The bookmark search engine 130 includes hardware, software and/or firmware to enable searching of the bookmark packages 300 stored in the bookmark package database 125. The bookmark search engine 130 provides an interface to receive bookmark search requests from users, to conduct searches of the bookmark packages 300 in the bookmark package database 125, to generate search results, and to provide the search results to the user, possibly via the browser 135 on the client device 105. An example user interface for displaying search results is shown in and described with reference to FIG. 6.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating details of the bookmark packaging engine 120. The bookmark packaging engine 120 includes a post manager 205, a URL ID generator 210, a user ID generator 215, a post ID generator 220, a description interface 225, a user notes UI 230, a tag UI 235, an automatic meta-information generator 240, and a keyword cleanup engine 245.

The post manager 205 may include hardware, software and/or firmware for enabling a user to request a bookmark to a content item to be saved in the bookmark package database 125, for communicating with the user and the other components (elements 210-245) of the bookmark packaging engine 120 to obtain bookmark and meta-information, for packaging the bookmark and meta-information, and for transmitting bookmark packages 300 to the bookmark package database 125. The post manager 205 may include web server functionality to enable the presentation of a user interface, e.g., the bookmark packaging form 500 shown in FIG. 5, as a website to the user. The post manager 205 may include an application program interface (API) to enable communication with the post bookmark plugin 140 or other plugins or applications. The API may be available to third parties, their applications and their plugins. For example, the user may navigate to the patent office website, e.g., http://www.uspto.gov/. The user may feel that others may benefit from learning about the existence of the patent office website, and thus may wish to bookmark the patent office website in a publicly available location. In one embodiment, upon deciding to bookmark the patent office website, the user may navigate to the website managed by the post manager 205 and may complete the bookmark packaging form 500 as shown in FIG. 5. In another embodiment, while still at the patent office website, the user may click on a button presented by the post bookmark plugin 140. In response, the post bookmark plugin 140 automatically gathers the bookmark information of the site the user is currently reviewing (e.g., the URL of the patent office website—“http://www.uspto.gov/”) and possibly meta-information about the website (e.g., the title of the patent office website—“United States Patent and Trademark Office Home Page”), automatically navigates to the bookmark packaging form 500 as shown in FIG. 5, and automatically fills in the relevant fields with the gathered URL and meta-information. It will be appreciated that the post manager 205 may refuse to post content items or URLs known to be bad.

The URL ID generator 210 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for automatically generating a URL ID based on the URL of interest, and possibly based on other information such as the title. The URL ID generator 210 may use conventional hashing functions to generate the URL ID.

The user ID generator 215 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for automatically generating a user ID based on the user. The user ID generator 215 may generate the user ID during the registration process. Thus, when a user returns to the bookmarking website, the user ID generator 215 may gather the user ID during the login process. Each user preferably has a unique ID.

The post ID generator 220 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for automatically generating a post ID. In one embodiment, the post ID generator 220 numbers the posts in sequential order. Each post will get a unique post ID.

The description interface 225 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for enabling meta-information to be added to a description field of the bookmark packaging form 500. In one embodiment, the description interface 225 automatically enters description information into the description field of the bookmark packaging form 500 as a default, and enables the user to edit the default description information. When operating with the plugin 140, the description interface 225 may receive the description information, e.g., title, from the plugin 140. When not operating with the plugin 140, the description interface 225 may automatically retrieve the description information from the website being bookmarked, enter the retrieved description information into the description field of the bookmark packaging form 500 as a default, and enable the user to edit the information. Alternatively, the description interface 225 may start from a blank field.

The user notes user interface 230 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for enabling the user to enter meta-information to a user notes field of the bookmark packaging form. Whether or not operating with the plugin 140, the user notes user interface 230 in one embodiment may start from a blank field. That is, in one embodiment, the user notes user interface 230 may not automatically enter any default notes.

The tag user interface 235 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for enabling the user to enter tags into a tag field of the bookmark packaging form 500. Whether or not operating with the plugin 140, the tag user interface 230 in one embodiment may start from a blank field. That is, in one embodiment, the tag user interface 230 may not automatically enter any default tags. In another embodiment, the tag user interface 230 may generate a default set of tags, possibly by analyzing the content item, by extracting words from the description and/or user notes, by extracting terms from related bookmarks, etc. The tags may include user-selected keywords or other descriptors and/or system-selected keywords or other descriptors. The tags may be based on specific attributes of the content item such as a file type. The tags may comprise individual keywords and/or groupings of tags.

The automatic meta-information generator 240 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for automatically gathering meta-information about the content item. For example, the automatic meta-information generator 240 may extract meta-information from the URL, from the user, from the host of the content item, from the content of the content item (e.g., using indexing/categorization techniques implemented by conventional web crawling systems), from the file type of the content item, etc.

The keyword cleanup engine 245 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for automatically managing terms of the description, the terms of the user notes, the tags, the automatically generated meta-information, etc. The keyword cleanup engine 245 may collapse versions of words into a single term (e.g., “search”, “searches”, “searching”, and “searchable” into the single term of “search”), may modify punctuation (e.g., change punctuation in the middle of words into an ampersand such as “people's” into “people&s”), may remove punctuation at the beginning and end of words, may add other words (e.g., synonyms, alternate spellings, etc.), etc.

It will be appreciated that the keyword cleanup engine 245 may handle indexing mechanisms in a manner specific to the database. For example, keywords may be divided by purpose into regions (e.g., notes, description, tags, etc.) and separated by a keyword that is not normally searchable (e.g., “_SEP_”). The region separator prevents phrase searches from matching across two or more keyword regions. The search manager's keyword cleanup engine 410 (discussed below with reference to FIG. 4) performs steps to ensure that users may not search for the separator keyword, for example, by removing leading and/or trailing punctuation from the user-entered search terms.

In one embodiment of the present invention, several types of internal meta-information are encoded as keywords that may be used to enhance or limit search results but may not be specified directly by the user.

-   -   URL ID (e.g., “_url_id=218527”). This is the unique ID of the         URL being indexed. There is one URL ID per index record.     -   URL IDs in other forms (e.g.,         “url_md5=7b6cdc20ad985d4ddc547cd18a9e3998”), which are used by         other parts of the system to uniquely identify index records by         URL. There may be multiple forms of URL ID, each referring to         the same URL.     -   Host ID (e.g., “_host=poe&perl&org” and “_host=perl&org”). These         identify the host part of the URL at various levels of         specificity in order to limit search results to specific hosts         or domains.     -   POST ID (e.g.,“_post_id=553034”). This is the unique ID of the         post associated with a URL's index record. Each URL index record         contains one or more post IDs. Index records that would have         zero post IDs are removed.     -   User ID (e.g., “_user_id=6564”). This is the unique ID of the         user who has bookmarked the associated URL. There is one user ID         per post ID.     -   Tag ID (e.g., “tag=perl”). Each tag is indexed as a plaintext         word and as an internal “tag” meta-information keyword. This         allows users to search only the tags without finding incidental         words in descriptions, extended text, or elsewhere.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the searchable part of a URL index record (i.e., the “key”) may look like this:

_tag=framework_tag=network_tag=perl_tag=poe_tag=programming framework network perl poe programming_SEP_(——)url_id=218527_url_md5=7b6cdc20ad985d4ddc547cd18a9e3998_post_id=483157_user_id=6564_post_id=553034_user_id=6116_SEP_host=poe&perl&org_host=perl&org_SEP_ very intriguing event&based perl framework wish i&d had this in 99_SEP_veri intrigue event&bas perl framework wish i&d had this in 99_SEP_multithreading for perl_SEP_multithread for perl

Index records may also contain payloads, which are structured data associated with the index record keywords but which are separate from and not indexed with the keywords. Payloads may contain information necessary to produce results in a user interface. However, they may change over time. In one embodiment of the present invention, index record payloads include the following information:

-   -   The most popular description for the URL, or a message         indicating that nobody has described the URL.     -   The most popular notes for the URL, or a message indicating that         nobody has annotated the URL.     -   The five most popular tags associated with the URL. Tags are         counted across all users who bookmarked the URL, and the five         most used ones are chosen. A tag must be used by at least two         users to be considered popular. Tags are stored in descending         order of popularity.     -   The number of posts for a given URL.     -   A map of user IDs to post IDs, so that a particular user's post         may be found among all the posts contributing to the URL's         keywords.     -   The URL's ID. The URL's hash ID is included to avoid         recalculating it when search results are presented to the user.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a bookmark package 300 generated by the bookmark packaging engine 120, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The bookmark package 300 includes URL 305, a URL ID 310, a user ID 315 of the user requesting that the bookmark be entered into the database, a post ID 320, description keywords 325, notes keywords 330, tags 335, automatically generated keywords 340, and other possible meta-information 345. It will be appreciated that the bookmark package database 125 will store multiple bookmark packages 300 and other information such as index information.

FIG. 4A is a block diagram illustrating details of the bookmark search engine 130. The bookmark search engine 130 includes a search manager 405, a keyword cleanup engine 410, a user-focused search module 415, an entire-collection search module 420, a related terms library 425, a related terms search module 430, a relevance value generator 435 and a bookmark recommendation system 440. Each of the components of the bookmark search engine 130 may be capable of communicating with various other components of the system 100, e.g., the client devices 105, the bookmark packaging engine 120, the bookmark package database 125, etc. It will be appreciated that all or a portion of the components of the bookmark search engine 130 may be maintained on the bookmark package database 125.

The search manager 405 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for receiving search requests from users, for communicating with the other search engine components (elements 410-440) to gather search result information, for sorting the search result information based on relevance, and for generating search results for presentation to the requesting users. The search manager 405 may enable the user to use Boolean operators, parentheses, quotation marks, and/or other search mechanisms. The search manager 405 may remove stopwords, e.g., words like “a”, “an”, “the,” etc. In one embodiment, the relative positions of keywords are preserved in the user's query, so that phrases can be found within the index database without regard to the gaps where stopwords lie. For example, a search for “one two and three” may find “one two and three”, “one two four three”, “one two knickers three”, etc. In other words, whatever word appears in the stopword's gap in the index is ignored, as long as “three” is in the fourth position of the phrase.

The keyword cleanup engine 410 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for managing the keywords of the description, the keywords of the user notes, the tags, the meta-information determined automatically, etc., and preferably operates identically to the keyword cleanup engine 245. That is, the keyword cleanup engine 410 may collapse versions of words into a single term (e.g., “search”, “searches”, “searching”, and “searchable” into the single term of “search”), may modify punctuation (e.g., change punctuation in the middle of words into an ampersand such as “people's” into “people&s”), may remove punctuation at the beginning and end of words, may add other words (e.g., synonyms, alternate spellings, etc.), may translate user-friendly query terms into internal metadata terms, such as “tag:poe” into “tag=poe”, etc.

The user-focused search module 415 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for conducting user-specific searches of the bookmark package database 125. That is, when a user conducts a search, e.g., a keyword search, a topic search, or the like, the user-focused search module 415 will identify only the bookmark packages that the user created. In one embodiment, the user-focused search module 415 will conduct the search against only the bookmark packages 300 that have the same user ID as the requesting user. In one embodiment, the user-focused search module 415 enables the requesting user to identify another user and to search the bookmark package database 125 for all or a portion of the bookmarks stored by the other user. In one embodiment, the user-focused search module 415 sends search requests to the bookmark package database 125, which conducts the actual search, possibly using an inverted index or other indexing technology, such as Xapian software.

The entire collection search module 420 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for conducting searches of the entire bookmark package database 125. That is, when a user conducts a search, e.g., a keyword search, a topic search, or the like, the entire collection search module 420 searches the bookmarks of the entire collection, regardless of the user that created each bookmark package 300. In one embodiment, the entire collection search module 420 sends search requests to the bookmark package database 125, which conducts the actual search, possibly using an inverted index or other indexing technology, such as Xapian software.

The related terms library 425 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for storing related terms. That is, the related terms library 425 may store synonyms, alternate spellings, different tenses, groupings of words that relate to particular topics (e.g., patent, patents, USPTO, intellectual property, etc.), etc. The related terms library 425 may store groupings of terms that relate to a given content item, such as the set of all tags corresponding to a given content item. In one embodiment, the related terms library 425 is stored on the bookmark package database 125.

The related terms search module 430 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for searching the related terms search library 425 for terms that relate to the keywords of a user search request. In one embodiment, the related terms search module 430 provides the related terms to the search manager 405, which in turn communicates with the user-focused search module 415 and the entire collection search module 420 to conduct additional searches of the bookmark package database 125 using the related terms. In one embodiment, the related terms search module 430 provides the related terms to the search manager 405, which provides them as a list to the user (should the user wish to conduct another search of the bookmark package database 125, e.g., by clicking on one or more of the related terms). In one embodiment, the related terms search module 430 sends search requests to the bookmark package database 125, which conducts the actual search, possibly using an inverted index or other indexing technology, such as Xapian software.

The relevance value generator 435 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for generating a relevance value of the bookmarks identified by the various search modules (e.g., search modules 415 and/or 420) and/or in cooperation with the various search modules (e.g., search modules 415 and/or 420) to assist with their determination of relevance. The relevance value generator 435 may determine relevance value based on features such as the number of bookmarks to a given content item, the number of hits on a given bookmark, the order of keywords in the search request, the date and time of the last post to the content item, the date and time of the last hit on a given bookmark, content analysis, etc. The relevance value generator 435 may generate a different relevance value to a keyword match based on whether the keyword match is found in the tag field versus the description field versus the user notes field. For example, the relevance value generator 435 may value a match with a tag greater than a match with a term in the description. Further, the relevance value generator 435 may value a match with a term in the description greater than a match with a term in the user notes. Other relevance value generation techniques or combination of techniques may be used.

It will be appreciated that the search manager 405 may handle search mechanisms in a manner specific to the database being used. In one embodiment, certain words and characters are treated as special by the indexing software, which provides a mechanism for keyword prefixes that can map to metadata. Some prefixes may not be exposed to the user. Rather, they are used internally to augment or limit the user's search. Unknown prefixes may be preserved by mapping them to themselves. This allows unknown prefixes to be treated as literal search text. In one embodiment, prefixes such as “media:” and “filetype:” are preserved this way despite the software's tendency to parse them specially. The preprocessed query and its custom prefixes are passed to the keyword cleanup engine 410 and the rest of the bookmark search engine 130 for subsequent processing.

The bookmark recommendation system 440 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for determining and providing bookmarks of possible interest to the user. The bookmark recommendation system 440 enables a given user to obtain bookmarks from the bookmark package database 125 that are related to bookmarks that the given user has stored. For example, if a user stores a number of bookmarks, e.g., 10, on a particular topic, e.g., associated with the same tag, then the bookmark recommendation system 440 may be capable of informing the given user of other users with interest in the particular topic and/or of other bookmarks stored by the other users that relate to the particular topic. By learning of another user with interest in the particular topic, the given user can search the bookmark package database 125 for bookmarks stored by the other user, possibly using the user-focused search module 415. Alternatively or additionally, the bookmark recommendation engine 440 can provide a list of related bookmarks stored by the other users to the given user. Example details of an embodiment of the bookmark recommendation system 440 are described below with reference to FIG. 4B.

FIG. 4B is a block diagram illustrating details of the bookmark recommendation engine 440, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The bookmark recommendation system 440 includes a recommendation manager 445, a related user finder 450, an overlap determination module 455, an overlap score generator 460, and a related bookmark finder 465.

The recommendation manager 445 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for determining when to make tag-based bookmark recommendations, for communicating with the other search engine components (elements 410-440 and 450-460), for sorting the recommendation result information based on overlap score, and for generating recommendation results for presentation to the user. The recommendation manager 445 may operate with the search manager 405 in its operations, e.g., for communicating with other components, for sorting recommendation result information and for generating recommendation results, etc. The recommendation manager 445 may enable offering recommendations when the user has stored a threshold number (e.g., 1, 10, or any other number) of bookmarks associated with at least one tag or related tags. In another embodiment, the threshold number may be set by the user. For example, when a user has tagged 10 bookmarks with the term “patent”, then the recommendation manager 445 may determine that the user may be interested in reviewing bookmarks of other users who have a similar interest in patents.

The related user finder 450 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for identifying other users with a similar interest. The related user finder 450 cooperates with the overlap determination module 455 (which includes hardware, software and/or firmware for searching the bookmark package database 125 for overlapping and nonoverlapping bookmarks) and the overlap score generator 460 (which includes hardware, software and/or firmware for generating an overlap score measuring user relatedness and value). The term “overlapping bookmarks” refers to those URLs in common between two different user sets of stored bookmarks. “Overlapping bookmarks” may include only identical bookmarks, may include those bookmarks for the same host, and/or the like. The term “nonoverlapping” refers to the bookmarks exclusive to one user over another. To optimize the analysis, the related user finder 450 may start by analyzing only other users that have at least one bookmark tagged with the same tag of interest or with a tag related to the tag of interest.

In cooperation with the overlap determination module 455, the related user finder 450 searches for other users (possibly within the optimized set of users) with a threshold number of bookmarks overlapping the given user's set of bookmarks tagged with the tag of interest. In one embodiment, the threshold number is equal to 1. In another embodiment, the threshold number is equal to 5. In another embodiment, the threshold number is set by the user. For example, if a given user has tagged 10 stored bookmarks with the term “patent”, then the related user finder 450 may search for another user who stores at least 5 of those 10 bookmarks (regardless of how the 5 bookmarks in common are tagged by the other user). In another embodiment, related user finder 450 determines the number of overlapping bookmarks that were tagged with the same tag of interest and/or the number of overlapping bookmarks not tagged with the same tag of interest. Regardless, bookmark overlap suggests that the given user and the other user have a common interest (the number of overlapping bookmarks indicating a level of relatedness to the particular topic).

In cooperation with the overlap determination module 455, the related user finder 450 may search the bookmarks of another user having stored a threshold number of overlapping bookmarks to determine whether the other user has a threshold number of nonoverlapping bookmarks tagged with the same tag of interest or a tag related to the tag of interest. The threshold number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks may be 1, 5, 10, any other number, or a number set by the user. Related nonoverlapping bookmarks suggest that the other user may have nonoverlapping bookmarks of possible interest to the given user (the number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks indicating a level of potential value to the given user).

Based on the level of relatedness and potential value, the overlap score generator 460 may generate an overlap score rating the other user to the given user. In one embodiment, the overlap score generator 460 may sum a weighted relatedness score and a weighted value score. The weight of each score may be different, be the same, be equal to one, etc. The relatedness score and the value score may be equal to the number computed by the overlap determination module 455. The related user finder 450 generates results for presentation to the given user based on the overlap score.

The related bookmark finder 465 includes hardware, software and/or firmware for generating a list of other bookmarks of possible interest to the given user. In one embodiment, the related bookmark finder 465 uses the information generated by the related user finder 450, the overlap determination module 455 and the overlap score generator 460. That is, the related bookmark finder 465 generates a list of the related nonoverlapping bookmarks of the other users, possibly in order from the greatest overlap score downward. The bookmarks of each related user may be placed in alphabetical order, in order based on the number of other users having stored that bookmark, in order based on the last click, etc.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example bookmark packaging form 500 for gathering a bookmark and meta-information on a bookmark, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The bookmark packaging form 500 displays a username 505 (from which the user ID may be generated), a URL field 510 (including the page being bookmarked by default, the USPTO website in this instance), a description field 515 (including the title of the page being bookmarked by default, the USPTO website title in this instance), a user notes field 520, and a tags field 525. The bookmark packaging form 500 presents a set of “recommended tags” that list terms used by others who have previously bookmarked this particular URL. It may also include other sets of tags (e.g., “your tags”, the set of tags you have used to bookmark previous URLs).

FIG. 6 illustrates an example user interface 600 for displaying the results of a search of the bookmark package database 125, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. User interface 600 provides search results for user 605 (“msockol”) in response to a keyword search (“uspto”) as shown in the keyword search field 610. The search results include a list of items bookmarked by the user 605 and relevant to the keyword search 610, shown as “Your items” 615. In this illustration, no results were found. The search results also include a list of bookmarks saved by the entire collection of users and relevant to the keyword search, shown in “Everyone's items” 620. “Everyone's items” 620 include 429 related content items in an order corresponding to a relevance value generated by a relevance value generator 435. The search results also include a list of common tags 625 related to the keyword search 610. The list of common tags 625 includes a list of terms generated from the tags corresponding to the list of bookmarks. The list of terms may include only terms having been entered by more than a certain number of people, e.g., more than 5 people, or may include only the terms for the top 10 bookmarks in the list. The list may be ordered based on popularity of the terms. The search results may include other information, such as related terms, bookmark lists generated based on related terms, etc.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating details of an example computer system 700, of which each client device 105, each content server 115, the bookmark packaging engine 120, the bookmark search engine 130 and the bookmark package database 125 may be an instance. Computer system 700 includes a processor 705, such as an Intel Pentium microprocessor or a Motorola Power PC® microprocessor, coupled to a communications channel 720. The computer system 700 further includes an input device 710 such as a keyboard or mouse, an output device 715 such as a cathode ray tube display, a communications device 725, a data storage device 730 such as a magnetic disk, and memory 735 such as Random-Access Memory (RAM), each coupled to the communications channel 720. The communications interface 725 may be coupled to a network such as the wide-area network commonly referred to as the Internet. One skilled in the art will recognize that, although the data storage device 730 and memory 735 are illustrated as different units, the data storage device 730 and memory 735 can be parts of the same unit, distributed units, virtual memory, etc.

The data storage device 730 and/or memory 735 may store an operating system 740 such as the Microsoft Windows XP, Linux, the IBM OS/2 operating system, the MAC OS, or UNIX operating system and/or other programs 745. It will be appreciated that a preferred embodiment may also be implemented on platforms and operating systems other than those mentioned. An embodiment may be written using Perl, C, and/or C++ language, or other programming languages, possibly using object oriented or other programming methodologies.

One skilled in the art will recognize that the computer system 700 may also include additional information, such as network connections, additional memory, additional processors, LANs, input/output lines for transferring information across a hardware channel, the Internet or an intranet, etc. One skilled in the art will also recognize that the programs and data may be received by and stored in the system in alternative ways. For example, a computer-readable storage medium (CRSM) reader 750 such as a magnetic disk drive, hard disk drive, magneto-optical reader, CPU, etc. may be coupled to the communications bus 720 for reading a computer-readable storage medium (CRSM) 755 such as a magnetic disk, a hard disk, a magneto-optical disk, RAM, etc. Accordingly, the computer system 700 may receive programs and/or data via the CRSM reader 750. Further, it will be appreciated that the term “memory” herein is intended to cover all data storage media whether permanent or temporary.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating a method 800 of indexing a bookmark, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Method 800 begins in step 805 with the post manager 205 receiving a bookmark request for a given content item. In step 810, the post manager 205 obtains automatically generated meta-information from automatic generators. For example, the post manager 205 may obtain a URL ID from the URL ID generator 210, a user ID from the user ID generator 215, a post ID from the post ID generator 220, and other meta-information (e.g., keywords in the content item, host information, URL information, etc.) from another automatic meta-information generator 240. The post manager 205 may obtain description information from the description interface 225. As stated above, all or a portion of the description information may be generated automatically. In step 815, the post manager 205 obtains tag information from the tag user interface 235. In step 820, the post manager 205 obtains other meta-information from the user, e.g., from the user notes user interface 230, from the description interface 225, etc.

In step 825, the post manager 205 generates a bookmark package 300. In one embodiment, the post manager 205 operates with the keyword cleanup engine 245 to modify the meta-information, e.g., the terms of the tags, the terms of the description, the terms of the user notes, etc. Such modifications may include modifying punctuation, collapsing words, etc. In step 830, the post manager 205 forwards the bookmark package to the bookmark package database 125. The bookmark package database 125 in step 835 generates index information, e.g., generates tag spaces, bookmark spaces, term spaces, etc., and in step 840 stores the bookmark package (and any index information). Method 800 then ends.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating a method 900 of searching the bookmark package database 125, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Method 900 begins in step 905 with the search manager 405 receiving a user search request and possibly using the keyword cleanup engine 410 to modify the keywords of the search request (possibly in an identical process as implemented during the packaging process by the keyword cleanup engine 245). In step 910, the search manager 405 cooperates with the user-focused search module 415 to conduct a search for bookmarks related to the search request and posted by the particular user. In step 915, the search manager 405 cooperates with the entire collection search module 420 to conduct a search for the bookmarks related to the search request, regardless of the user that posted the bookmark. In step 920, the search manager 405, possibly in cooperation with the related terms library 425 and/or the related terms search module 430, conducts a search for related search terms. The related search terms may be related based on known relatedness (such as synonyms, antonyms, alternative spellings, same root, etc.) and/or based on tag relatedness (e.g., other users have marked the same content item with other tag terms). Known relatedness and tag relatedness may overlap in all or in part. In step 925, the search manager 405, possibly in cooperation with the user-focused search module 415 and/or the entire collection search module 420, conducts any additional searches based on the related terms. In step 930, the search manager 405 generates a relevance value for each bookmark of the search results. In one embodiment, step 930 occurs in cooperation with step 910 and/or step 915. In step 935, the search manager 405 presents the search results to the user, possibly in the order based on the relevance values of the bookmark packages. Method 900 then ends.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a method 900 of recommending related bookmarks to a given user, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Method 1000 begins with the recommendation manager 445 in step 1005 initiating a recommendation analysis. The initiation may be responsive to a given user reaching a threshold number of URLs stored with a particular tag of interest and possibly in response to a user request. The recommendation manager 445 in step 1010 picks one of the other users (possibly from a set of users that have stored at least a threshold number of bookmarks associated with the same tag of interest or a tag related to the tag of interest) to analyze for relatedness to the given user (specifically, to the given user's particular tag of interest).

The related user finder 450 in cooperation with the overlap determination module 455 in step 1015 determines the number of overlapping URLs in the other user's set of stored bookmarks and in step 1020 determines if the number of overlapping URLs is greater than a threshold number. If the overlapping threshold is not met, then the method 1000 returns to step 1010 to select another user for analysis. If the overlapping threshold is met, then the related user finder 450 in cooperation with the overlap determination module 455 in step 1025 determines the number of related nonoverlapping URLs in the other user's set of bookmarks and in step 1030 determines whether the number of related nonoverlapping URLs is greater than a threshold number. The related user finder 450 may count only URLs of the other user that have the same tag as the tag of interest, may count URLs that have a tag related to the tag of interest (tag relationship being maintained by the related terms search module 430 and related terms library 425), may count URLs that have a tag related to any tag belonging to any URL associated with the tag of interest, combinations, etc. If the nonoverlapping threshold is not met, then the method 1000 may return to step 1010. If the nonoverlapping threshold is met, then the related user finder 450 in cooperation with the overlap score generator 460 in step 1035 generates an overlap score of the other user to the given user based on the number of overlapping bookmarks and/or based on the number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks.

The recommendation manager 445 in step 1040 determines whether there is another user to analyze. If there is another user to analyze, then the method 1000 returns to step 1010. If there are no more users to analyze, then the recommendation manager 445 possibly in cooperation with the search manager 405 in step 1045 organizes the related users identified based on overlap score and presents the related user list to the given user. The recommendation manager 445 in cooperation with the related bookmark finder 465 and the search manager 405 in step 1050 organizes the related nonoverlapping bookmarks based on the users' overlap scores and presents the related nonoverlapping bookmarks to the given user. Method 1000 then ends.

FIG. 11 illustrates a tag space portion 1100 of bookmark package database 125 for four example users, namely, users A-D. The tag space portion 1100 contains an example set of user-generated tags and associated URLs. User A has URLs 1-10 tagged with Tag 1. User B has URLs 1-5 tagged with Tag 1 and URLs 7 and 11-20 tagged with Tag 2. User C has URLs 5-20 tagged with Tag 1 and URLs 1-7 tagged with Tag 3. User D has URLs 1-8 and 12-40 tagged with Tag 1 and URLs 41-50 tagged with Tag 4. Assuming that the threshold number of URLs needed to enable bookmark recommendations is 10, then the recommendation manager 445 enables bookmark recommendations for User A.

The related user finder 450, in cooperation with the overlap determination module 455 and the overlap score generator 460, determines whether User B, User C and/or User D are related users. Assuming that the related user finder 450 seeks only users having an overlapping threshold of 5 overlapping bookmarks and a related nonoverlapping threshold of 5 related nonoverlapping bookmarks, the related user finder 450 determines that User B cannot be a related user since it does have 5 related nonoverlapping bookmarks. User C has 10 overlapping bookmarks (6 overlapping and tagged by Tag 1, 7 overlapping a tagged by Tag 3, and 10 total overlapping) and 10 related nonoverlapping bookmarks. The related user finder 450 determines that User C is related since it exceeds both thresholds. The related user finder 450 then scores User C, possibly equal to the sum of its relatedness (in this case, 10) and its value (in this case, 10), for a total of 20. User D has 8 overlapping bookmarks (all 8 tagged by Tag 1) and 29 related nonoverlapping bookmarks. The related user finder 450 determines that User D is also related since it exceeds both thresholds. The related user finder 450 then scores User D, possibly equal to the sum of its relatedness (in this case, 8) and its value (in this case, 29), for a total of 37.

Since User D's overlap score is greater than User C's overlap score, the recommendation manager 445 may present User D first and User C second to User A. Similarly, the recommendation manager 445, in cooperation with the related bookmark finder 465, may present the 29 related nonoverlapping bookmarks of User D first and the 10 related nonoverlapping bookmarks of User C second to User A.

In one embodiment, the level of relatedness may be based on whether the tags of the overlapping bookmarks are related to the tag of interest or not. In one embodiment, the level of value may be based only on nonoverlapping bookmarks associated with the same tag of interest, may be based on nonoverlapping bookmarks associated with any tag related to the tag of interest, and/or the like. In one embodiment, overlap scoring may be weighted differently based on whether the overlapping bookmark is related or not, whether the nonoverlapping bookmarks are associated with the identical tag or a related but not identical tag, whether the URL itself is identical or merely associated with the same host or domain, or the like.

It will be appreciated that, to avoid unnecessary computation, threshold numbers may change dynamically based on the scores of other users found to be related. For example, if 50 users are found to have 25 overlapping bookmarks and 30 related nonoverlapping bookmarks, overlapping and nonoverlapping threshold numbers may be changed to 25 and 30, respectively, to avoid having to compute overlap scores for those with fewer overlapping bookmarks and related nonoverlapping bookmarks.

The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention is by way of example only, and other variations and modifications of the above-described embodiments and methods are possible in light of the foregoing teaching. Although the network sites are being described as separate and distinct sites, one skilled in the art will recognize that these sites may be a part of an integral site, may each include portions of multiple sites, or may include combinations of single and multiple sites. The various embodiments set forth herein may be implemented utilizing hardware, software, or any desired combination thereof. For that matter, any type of logic may be utilized which is capable of implementing the various functionality set forth herein. Components may be implemented using a programmed general purpose digital computer, using application specific integrated circuits, or using a network of interconnected conventional components and circuits. Connections may be wired, wireless, modem, etc. The embodiments described herein are not intended to be exhaustive or limiting. The present invention is limited only by the following claims. 

1. A method, comprising: identifying a first user having stored in a database a set of first bookmarks associated with a topic of interest; determining a level of relatedness of a second user to the first user by comparing a first number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks; determining a level of value of the second user to the first user by comparing a second number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks; and presenting at least a portion of the related nonoverlapping bookmarks to the first user.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether the first user has more than a threshold number of first bookmarks in the set of first bookmarks associated with the topic of interest.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the database is a publicly available database.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first bookmarks are associated with at least one first tag that indicates the topic of interest.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the nonoverlapping bookmarks are associated with at least one second tag, and further comprising determining whether the nonoverlapping bookmarks are related to the topic of interest by comparing the at least one first tag to the at least one second tag.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether the first number is greater than an overlapping threshold.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether the second number is greater than a nonoverlapping threshold.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating an overlap score of the second user to the first user based on the level of relatedness and on the level of value.
 9. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining a level of relatedness of a third user to the first user by comparing a third number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the third user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks; determining a level of value of the third user to the first user by comparing a fourth number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the third user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks; generating an overlap score of the third user to the first user based on the level of relatedness and on the level of value; and comparing the overlap score of the second user to the overlap score of the third user to determine whether the second user or the third user should be prioritized.
 10. The method of claim 9, further comprising presenting the first user a first link to the bookmarks of the second user and second link to the bookmarks of the third user.
 11. A system, comprising: a recommendation manager for identifying a first user having stored in a database a set of first bookmarks corresponding to a topic of interest; and an overlap determination module for determining a level of relatedness of a second user to the first user by comparing a first number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks, and for determining a level of value of the second user to the first user by comparing a second number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the recommendation manager determines whether the first user has more than a threshold number of first bookmarks in the set of first bookmarks associated with the topic of interest.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the database is a publicly available database.
 14. The system of claim 11, wherein the first bookmarks are associated with at least one first tag that indicates the topic of interest.
 15. The system of claim 14, wherein the nonoverlapping bookmarks are associated with at least one second tag, and wherein the overlap determination module determines whether the nonoverlapping bookmarks are related to the topic of interest by comparing the at least one first tag to the at least one second tag.
 16. The system of claim 11, further comprising a related user finder for determining whether the first number is greater than an overlapping threshold.
 17. The system of claim 11, further comprising a related user finder for determining whether the second number is greater than a nonoverlapping threshold.
 18. The system of claim 11, further comprising an overlap score generator for generating an overlap score of the second user to the first user based on the level of relatedness and on the level of value.
 19. The system of claim 18, wherein the overlap determination module determines a level of relatedness of a third user to the first user by comparing a third number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the third user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks; wherein the overlap determination module determines a level of value of the third user to the first user by comparing a fourth number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the third user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks; wherein the overlap score generator generates an overlap score of the third user to the first user based on the level of relatedness and on the level of value; and further comprising a recommendation manager for comparing the overlap score of the second user to the overlap score of the third user to determine whether the second user or the third user should be prioritized.
 20. The system of claim 19, wherein the recommendation manager enables presenting the first user a first link to the bookmarks of the second user and second link to the bookmarks of the third user.
 21. The system of claim 11, wherein the recommendation manager enables presenting at least a portion of the related nonoverlapping bookmarks to the first user.
 22. A system comprising: means for identifying a first user having stored in a database a set of first bookmarks associated with a topic of interest; means for determining a level of relatedness of a second user to the first user by comparing a first number of overlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user and that overlap the set of first bookmarks; means for determining a level of value of the second user to the first user by comparing a second number of related nonoverlapping bookmarks that were stored in the database by the second user, that relate to the topic of interest, and that do not overlap the set of first bookmarks; and means for presenting at least a portion of the related nonoverlapping bookmarks to the first user. 